Saturday, September 25, 2010

Following are quotables from “Real Time with Bill Maher” for Friday, September 24th, 2010. “Real Time with Bill Maher” airs Fridays at 10:00PM ET (10:00PM PT, tape delayed) on HBO, with additional replays throughout the week on HBO and HBO 2.

There’s nothing about what really, you know, is bothering people, especially on that side of the aisle, how to cut the deficit or decrease spending, it’s just about kicking out Mexicans, keeping Guantanamo open, getting rid of health insurance for sick kids, you know, feel-good stuff.

- Bill Maher, in his opening monologue, regarding the Republicans “Pledge to America”

It was a very good week for getting absolutely nothing done in Congress. They blocked, the Republicans did, the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. We thought this was going to be a done deal. I don’t know what their problem is with Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Even if it is repealed, there will still be a major American institution where gays are still forced to hide in shame and secrecy: The Republican party.

- Bill Maher, in his opening monologue

They’re giving up on their tax cuts for the middle class until after the election. … Have they seen the polls? Planning to do this after the election. This is like a condemned man asking for a doggie bag at the last meal.

- Bill Maher, in his opening monologue

Christine O’Donnell in Delaware … There are a lot of questions now about her use of campaign funds and not paying her taxes and not paying her mortgage. And on top of that, some asshole outed her as a witch.

- Bill Maher, in his opening monologue

Let me just say to the Wiccans, who are the witch people out there, cause they’re on my case: It wasn’t me, Wiccans, who conflated witches with Satanic stuff, that was Christine did that. I know that Satan worshippers and witches are not the same thing. So please, change my assistant back into a human. Would ya please? It’s funny for a while, but chickens can’t type.

- Bill Maher, in his opening monologue

The one thing that’s definitely true is there’s certainly a cover-up. I mean, I wouldn’t speak on whether they had some CIA operative waiting in a bush to shoot his ass … I think it’s criminal for sure.

- Richard Tillman, brother of killed soldier Pat Tillman, about his brother’s death

What’s the morality of passing legislation that is now keeping businesses from hiring new employees and not offering jobs that would even give the healthcare coverage.

The American people didn’t have the ability to debate the issue … They didn’t debate it for a year. People said we will not talk about it with you. They shoved union members into the front of the town halls. They beat people up.

- Andrew Breitbart, regarding healthcare reform

When we invaded Iraq, we invited the UK to come fight with us. We invited France. We invited Germany. Every one of those armies had openly gay soldiers serving in the military. The only other country that didn’t, besides us, was the Iraqi army.

New Rule: Never let your children take an overnight trip with a holy man who wears more than two pieces of jewelry. Atlanta’s gay-bashing Bishop Eddie Long has been accused of buying cars for teenage boys, then inviting them to New Zealand and molesting them, in what authorities are calling “the worst Oprah surprise of all time.” Which leads me to: New Rule: If your minister says being gay is bad, or a sin, or an evil temptation, or has any opinion on it stronger than “who gives a shit,” your minister is gay.

- Bill Maher in his “New Rules” segment

New Rule: If they’re going to make a historical epic, full of British actors, in period costumes, about Queen Elizabeth helping her father get over his speech impediment, why bother having the Oscars at all? You win. Unless someone in America is making a movie where Meryl Streep teaches Anne Frank how to box, we give up.

Friday, September 24, 2010

New Rule: The next rich person who publicly complains about being vilified by the Obama administration must be publicly vilified by the Obama administration. It's so hard for one person to tell another person what constitutes being "rich", or what tax rate is "too much." But I've done some math that indicates that, considering the hole this country is in, if you are earning more than a million dollars a year and are complaining about a 3.6% tax increase, then you are by definition a greedy asshole.

And let's be clear: that's 3.6% only on income above 250 grand -- your first 250, that's still on the house. Now, this week we got some horrible news: that one in seven Americans are now living below the poverty line. But I want to point you to an American who is truly suffering: Ben Stein. You know Ben Stein, the guy who got rich because when he talks it sounds so boring it's actually funny. He had a game show on Comedy Central, does eye drop commercials, doesn't believe in evolution? Yeah, that asshole. I kid Ben -- so, the other day Ben wrote an article about his struggle. His struggle as a wealthy person facing the prospect of a slightly higher marginal tax rate. Specifically, Ben said that when he was finished paying taxes and his agents, he was left with only 35 cents for every dollar he earned. Which is shocking, Ben Stein has an agent? I didn't know Broadway Danny Rose was still working.

Ben whines in his article about how he's worked for every dollar he has -- if by work you mean saying the word "Bueller" in a movie 25 years ago. Which doesn't bother me in the slightest, it's just that at a time when people in America are desperate and you're raking in the bucks promoting some sleazy Free Credit Score dot-com... maybe you shouldn't be asking us for sympathy. Instead, you should be down on your knees thanking God and/or Ronald Reagan that you were lucky enough to be born in a country where a useless schmuck who contributes absolutely nothing to society can somehow manage to find himself in the top marginal tax bracket.

And you're welcome to come on the show anytime.

Now I can hear you out there saying, "Come on Bill, don't be so hard on Ben Stein, he does a lot of voiceover work, and that's hard work." Ok, it's true, Ben is hardly the only rich person these days crying like a baby who's fallen off his bouncy seat. Last week Mayor Bloomberg of New York complained that all his wealthy friends are very upset with mean ol' President Poopy-Pants: He said they all say the same thing: "I knew I was going to have to pay more taxes. But I didn't expect to be vilified." Poor billionaires -- they just can't catch a break.

First off, far from being vilified, we bailed you out -- you mean we were supposed to give you all that money and kiss your ass, too? That's Hollywood you're thinking of. FDR, he knew how to vilify; this guy, not so much. And second, you should have been vilified -- because you're the vill-ains! I'm sure a lot of you are very nice people. And I'm sure a lot of you are jerks. In other words, you're people. But you are the villains. Who do you think outsourced all the jobs, destroyed the unions, and replaced workers with desperate immigrants and teenagers in China. Joe the Plumber?

And right now, while we run trillion dollar deficits, Republicans are holding America hostage to the cause of preserving the Bush tax cuts that benefit the wealthiest 1% of people, many of them dead. They say that we need to keep taxes on the rich low because they're the job creators. They're not. They're much more likely to save money through mergers and outsourcing and cheap immigrant labor, and pass the unemployment along to you.

Americans think rich people must be brilliant; no -- just ruthless. Meg Whitman is running for Governor out here, and her claim to fame is, she started e-Bay. Yes, Meg tapped into the Zeitgeist, the zeitgeist being the desperate need of millions of Americans to scrape a few dollars together by selling the useless crap in their garage. What is e-Bay but a big cyber lawn sale that you can visit without putting your clothes on?

Another of my favorites, Congresswoman Michele Bachmann said, "I don't know where they're going to get all this money, because we're running out of rich people in this country." Actually, we have more billionaires here in the U.S. than all the other countries in the top ten combined, and their wealth grew 27% in the last year. Did yours? Truth is, there are only two things that the United States is not running out of: Rich people and bullshit. Here's the truth: When you raise taxes slightly on the wealthy, it obviously doesn't destroy the economy -- we know this, because we just did it -- remember the '90's? It wasn't that long ago. You were probably listening to grunge music, or dabbling in witchcraft. Clinton moved the top marginal rate from 36 to 39% -- and far from tanking, the economy did so well he had time to get his dick washed.

Even 39% isn't high by historical standards. Under Eisenhower, the top tax rate was 91%. Under Nixon, it was 70%. Obama just wants to kick it back to 39 -- just three more points for the very rich. Not back to 91, or 70. Three points. And they go insane. Steve Forbes said that Obama, quote "believes from his inner core that people... above a certain income have more than they should have and that many probably have gotten it from ill-gotten ways." Which they have. Steve Forbes, of course, came by his fortune honestly: he inherited it from his gay egg-collecting, Elizabeth Taylor fag-hagging father, who inherited it from his father. Of course then they moan about the inheritance tax, how the government took 55% percent when Daddy died -- which means you still got 45% for doing nothing more than starting out life as your father's pecker-snot.

We don't hate rich people, but have a little humility about how you got it and stop complaining. Maybe the worst whiner of all: Stephen Schwarzman, #69 on Forbes' list of richest Americans, compared Obama's tax hike to "when Hitler invaded Poland in 1939." Wow. If Obama were Hitler, Mr. Schwarzman, I think your tax rate would be the least of your worries.

Friday, September 17, 2010

Following are quotables from “Real Time with Bill Maher” for Friday, September 17th, 2010. “Real Time with Bill Maher” airs Fridays at 10:00PM ET (10:00PM PT, tape delayed) on HBO, with additional replays throughout the week on HBO and HBO 2.

She does not have a mean bone in her body. Or any other bone in her body. She would campaign against sex outside of marriage, against condoms, against pornography, against masturbation…all my hobbies. But mostly masturbation. She hates that. Which is ironic since she owes her nomination to a bunch of jack offs.
- Bill Maher in his opening monologue about Christine O’Donnell

Her campaign signs show a picture of Obama and they say “Spank This Monkey Instead,” because the Tea Party is 100% not racist.
- Bill Maher in his opening monologue about Christine O’Donnell

Her detractors use this; say she’s homeless, jobless and can’t pay her taxes and her supporters say ‘finally, someone who represents the average American.’
- Bill Maher on Christine O’Donnell

I don’t understand America’s attitudes for Muslims these days. They knock down a building in New York, we get mad. They want to put up a building in New York, we get mad. Make up your minds!
- Bill Maher

There is nothing that cools right-wing heads more than injecting Michael Moore into a controversy.
- Bill Maher regarding Michael Moore’s blog entry about the mosque controversy

Why don’t we have words for people like Gingrich and Palin because you know, they’re essentially our Mullahs, our Taliban. We don’t even refer to them as but we should start calling them Cleric Gingrich and Mullah Taliban Palin. See how that fits….their level of bigotry is so un-American.
- Michael Moore

How about that McDonald’s two blocks away from Ground Zero? That’s killed more people than the nineteen high jackers.
- Michael Moore about the mosque controversy

I do miss George Bush. Compared to these tea baggers and the people who are pandering to them, he looks like a professor.
- Bill Maher

I think it is sad that the guy who was a big ideas guy in the party is crawling his way to the bottom. We should be debating ideas and not birth certificates and the notion that someone comes from Africa.
- Mark McKinnon on Newt Gingrich

The Democratic Party is re-electing people like Charlie Rangel. We’ve got Democratic congressmen who think that Guam is overpopulated and going to tip over, so all the crazies aren’t in the Tea Party. They’re all crazy up there right now.
- Mark McKinnon

Isn’t Obama’s big problem that he does everything half ass? Maybe it’s because he’s only half black. If he was fully black, he would be a better president. There’s a white man in him, holding him back.
- Bill Maher

New Rule: Nobody wants to see a movie about Facebook. What's the big Second Act crisis, a server going down? If this is a hit, what next? "Google: The Musical?" "Craigslist 3D - The Search For A Slightly Used Rowing Machine?" They might as well make a sitcom out of that blog where some guy just repeats shit his dad says.
- Bill Maher in his “New Rules” segment

New Rule: If you dragged your man to "Eat, Pray, Love" this summer, he gets to take you to a movie called, "Football, Jerk Off, Nap."
- Bill Maher in his “New Rules” segment